You’d think the Vatican would be awash with scripture experts wouldn’t you; scholars who know their Greek? So how come the Pope has managed to get the Lord’s Prayer so wrong? As The Tablet reported last week, he’s approved the changes to it made by the Italian bishops’ conference which replaces the Italian translation, e non ci indurre in tentazione with e non abbandonarci alla tentazione, or “and do not abandon us to temptation”.

This is of a piece with the Pope’s view, expressed in an interview on Italian television in December 2017, that “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil” (as it is translated in various languages) is a bad translation: “It speaks of a God who induces temptation … I am the one who falls. It’s not him pushing me into temptation to then see how I have fallen. A father doesn’t do that; a father helps you to get up immediately,” he explained.

Well, it’s all very interesting how Christ falls short of the Pope’s ideal of Christian behaviour, but it’s not quite what Matthew 6:13 actually says. Greek isn’t my strong suit, so I asked a classicist friend to analyse the relevant passage, the “Lead us not …” bit. I reproduce his observations here, because plainly no one has bothered at the Vatican.